"You needn't try to stop me, I'm going. Becky's down there somewhere, and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to see. You needn't come if you're afraid, but I'm going!"
The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and the three went on together toward the burned district.
"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business here."
"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,—one of the girls in our store," answered Lizzie.
"Becky Hawkins?"
"Yes; do you know her?"
"Should think I did. This is my beat,—known her all her life pretty much."
"Did she get out,—is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend Tim."
The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,—a smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what the Riker girls had said she was,—a little Cove Street hoodlum,—while Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman had advised, adding,—